Kids & Technology 101

I'm just gonna be honest.  This post is sure to ruffle some feathers.  Some of you will give me high 5's.  Some will give me the evil eye in the carpool line.  And, I'm okay with that.  It's my blog and I get to say what I want.  I would like to say, that regardless of my feelings on technology, it doesn't mean I want to tar & feather fellow parents for their choices on their kids and the technology they allow them to use.

Let's get this started.

A key point to state is that my kid is 10.  My feelings are based on this.  Well, mostly.

I can't tell you how many kids 13 and under that I see with Facebook accounts.  I cringe when C looks over my shoulder and tries to keep up with my news feed.  It's the internet people, there is always going to be inappropriate content that pops up.  So why in a world where everything is in your face would you let your kid have a Facebook account?  No matter what, they will see things you won't like.  Personally I'd like C to hold on to her innocence a little while longer since she's oh, only 10.  And yes, I'm very familiar with privacy settings, but that doesn't stop everything.

I'm not some crazy freak mom who wants to shelter my sweet baby.  I am however, a very technology savvy mom who wants to equip my daughter with things at the appropriate time.  I'm pretty dang open with my kid, but that doesn't mean I want everyone else to be open with my kid.

Some of the most common things lately have been the iPod touch, iPhone, or any smart phone really.  I'm not opposed to these things, but I'm not thrilled about them being in the hands of kids either.  Caroline has had a phone since she was 8.  A plain old phone that calls and texts.  I felt that since we cancelled our home phone and I was having problems with her dad answering his phone when she was there for his weekends, that I needed to be able to get ahold of her when I darn well wanted to.  She knew the rules from day one.  You can call any of your 4 parents. You can text those 4 parents.  And in 2 years, she has handled it better than I ever dreamed.  She is now allowed to call or text her close friends on occasion.  She earned that for being responsible with it and not abusing the fact that she had a phone.

She wants an iPhone.  Bahahaha.  We've discussed it, we've enthusiastically debated it.  And I said yes...for about 1 day.

I decided I needed to research my options for privacy and security a little more.  I kid you not, the next day I saw roughly 10 instances that ruined all hope for her getting one.  Or for the pretty new iTouch to replace her 1st generation one.

Twitter, FB, Instagram, just to name a few...oye!  I use them all, but after seeing some similar aged kids that we know using these and the stuff I witnessed made me realize that yes, Caroline is still a baby in this world.  And I want to protect her from it.

I saw kids posting pics of other kids on school buses, with hateful commentary.  I saw kids who were following half naked people, or half naked people were following them.  I saw duck faces, booty pics, and pajama pics.  I saw little girls trying to be sexy and boys trying to be buff.  I saw them posting friends pictures and tagging them so they would get more followers...which is how I'm sure the half naked people ended up on their friends lists.  Is this what we're really teaching our kids?  No wonder they struggle in their teens, we aren't guiding them at the right time.

We are doing our jobs by wanting to give them the best possessions we can, which in turn helps them socially.  But at what cost?  Let's face it.  We don't want our kids to be picked on, we want them to be accepted.  And when the norm for being accepted revolves around all this in your face technology, we have to be careful what choices we make for our kids.  I'm well aware that we can 'police' the social media outlets we let our kids use, but good grief, who has time to check every app, go through the friends or followers list and make sure all is happy?  Not anyone I know.  Well maybe me.  But only because I'm already on these sites everyday and I'm pretty quick at giving things the once over.  And I work for myself, so I make the rules.

I make decisions about Caroline's friends based on what I know of them and when I see things that aren't okay for her age, posted by her little friends, I pause and think twice.  I.hate.that.

I always knew that as she got older I would be faced with tough choices, but I didn't think it would be this fast and over a phone.  I wish more parents didn't give in to the craze of having an                   {insert form of technology here}.  It makes it hard on all of us.  But, if you know me, I don't follow suit because it's cool, so for now, even if all her friends have an iPhone, she won't.

Before any nasty people start in about how I must have had a sheltered life, or I didn't have all the cool things, your wrong.  I did have strict parents.  But, I also had a mom who wasn't a fool and bought hot pink condoms to match my prom dress.  Nice.  I also was the only 16 year old I knew in 1994 that had a cell phone.  All my friends had pagers, and no, I wasn't a dork.

The moral of the story is that although I love technology and I want my kid to be socially up to speed, I don't know that I really want to put the burden of all that responsibility on my 10 year old.  Let's start with getting her to clean her room.